My sympathies Dr. St. Brad Esq PhD.
I got my car broken into 2x within a coupla months back when I had one. Both times, the theives got about $1 or $2 in change that I had in the glove compartment for toll emergencies. Meanwhile I was spending hundreds to repair the stupid window. Assholes.

I too had a car broken into; a window was smashed, and everything that was in the car was rifled and rejected, interestingly enough. Had to pay for the window repair, cost a few hundred dollars. My neighbors were hit by the same people and worse off, so I wasn’t as pi**ed.

I’m sorry your car got boosted. It’s happened to me as well, and friends. Not to defend it, needless to say, but the logic behind it is that it’s a zero-cost activity (unless you get caught or injure yourself, of course), so any skimpy item found could result in a profit.

And hey, you never know. The owner may keep his Desert Eagle, or his Rolex, or her stash, in the car.

My advice would be to look for a parking area where cars tend to be assaulted less often.

Last time mine was broken into, the “third rate cheeseball” elevated himself to “second rate cheeseball” by breaking the little opera window in the back drivers side door. Easy, inexpensive fix — I paid for it out of pocket. If I met Mr. Second Rate on the street or knew who he was, I probably would’ve just patted him on the back and let him go. The damage of the third rate cheeseball before him cost eight times more to fix.

I haven’t locked my car for ages, just keep valuable stuff out. In DC, I’d also open the glove compartment, so they could see there was nothing like a good pair of sunglasses or a gun there.
Someone who’ll bash in your window doesn’t give a damn about an alarm, they’ll hotfoot it away, or if caught say something like “Hey, I just saw the guy who did this! He went that way!” But look, I grabbed your stuff from him!” And they usually don’t care about spending the night in jail.
Sucks, but there you go.

Just curious Brad- you still in Baltimore?

Hi Friends,

I Find Absolutely FREE PlayBoy & Penthouse:

http://www.oxpe.net/playboy/

If I find something else I’ll inform you.

Best Regards,
Vera

I bet it was the musloislamofasci-rists.

Crappity. Been there several times myownself, and indeed it is teh suck.

Sympathies.

The entire “haul” from my break-in was a 10 franc coin. Maybe those cheeseballs are in fact cheese eating surrender monkeys.

I used to just leave my car unlocked when there was nothing to steal.

I too used to leave my car unlocked. Once in Seattle, someone broke in and sat in my drivers seat and ate an orange. That’s it. Nothing taken, but orange peels all over the place.

Had a car of mine broken into a few years ago. Sumbitches stole all of my DnD 3.0 books. And my backpack!

some young republican broke into my car and gave me a blowjob.

“I too used to leave my car unlocked. Once in Seattle, someone broke in and sat in my drivers seat and ate an orange. That’s it. Nothing taken, but orange peels all over the place.”

I bet you that was a runaway looking for a place to sleep for the night.

I gave up my car because I was tired of the breakdowns, the traffic tickets and the insurance costs. I’m now with careshare and as much as people give me that pity look from time to time, I don’t care, I know what I’m saving.

I had some cat litter stolen out of my car one time. And when I was little some bastard stole my dog out of my yard, along with his chain and water dish.

I just don’t have any luck with pets.

dai wins the thread

Until we hear otherwise, we should all assume this was the work of o’reillomalkinfascists.

Seattle is a freaky place. I had a mugger thank me once. Sincerely, as far as I could tell. For what? There was aspirin in my bag. I guess I saved him the trouble of going to buy some, uh, with my money.

And, hey, someone seems to be offering you FR33 PR0N!!1! as a consolation of some sort… Perhaps she’ll inform you if she finds the guy who busted your window.

Sorry to hear about your break-in.

I assume you’re a conservative now, Brad. So at least there’s that upside.

When I lived in Philly in the 90’s, I left my car unlocked with a sign saying “No Money, No Drugs, Shitty Radio”. If you didn’t, they would smash your window and look inside. The downside is that prostitutes would turn tricks in the backseat. My solution was to get the hell out of Philly. I hear people say that it has improved there, but I was happy to get out of that town.

When I was a freshman in college, there was a series of window smashings in one of the two parking lots. This lot only fit maybe 20 cars and the smasher started by breaking into one car. Then steadily escalated to the point where every other car had a broken window one October or November morning. No one was ever caught or charged. One friend got hit twice and the smasher only took a couple empty jewel cases the first time. The police did essentially nothing, even after it became a routine and was happening twice a week or more. A simple stake out would have caught the perp, but they couldn’t be bothered to help the campus.

Sucks about your car, Brad.

That sucks, Brad. When mine got broken into, they stole a stack of CD’s. I got some consolation from inagining the look on their face when they discovered they were trying to fence lesbian folk music.

I live in a rural neighborhood. People regularly leave their cars unlocked, and most of the neighborhood didn’t have burglar alarms until a scare a few years ago that made ADT slightly richer and earned a bunch of us referral fees. I left my car unlocked every once in a while, because we are set back in, in the middle of four acres of forest land. People almost never come back here. This past spring I had someone get in my car (the unlucky third car in a two-car-garage household) and rifle through the stuff (there was nothing in there, and the radio is a OEM General Motors for a 2003 Grand Am—really shitty, in other words). Thank goodness it was unlocked, so there was no damage. Just a mess of papers everywhere.

In the 23 years I have lived here, this neighborhood has changed somewhat, from a neighborhood made of mostly older retirees that knew everyone to a sizable minority of Larry-the-cable-guy-type exurbers who tend to have kids. They’ve caused a lot of tension between the two groups, and the cops theorized that the break-in might have been kids looking for something to sell for pot money. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Very sorry to hear about the break-in.

Where I used to work we’d get at least one break-in a day – the neighborhood was not particularly high-crime but I guess there was a small group of very dedicated car window smashers there. Somehow I escaped it, probably by driving a very boring cheap little car.

This was across the street from the police station, too. The cops around there were utterly incompetent. They did finally wise up and start sending a bicycle cop on a beat around the place, and the break-ins stopped.

“the cops theorized that the break-in might have been kids looking for something to sell for pot money.”

Well, if they had half a brain they would just wait in a public restroom until someone offers them 20 bucks to receive a bee jay.

Simba, my rural neighborhood is morphing from laid back hippie artist eccentrics into gated mansions and Land Rovers, and it really pisses me off.

There are those in my neighborhood who don’t lock their DOORS, much less their cars – for years, with no incident. And right next door to someone like this, a neighbor moves in and erects a 6′ fence with an steel, electric-operated gate across the driveway.

We are somewhat relaxed about home security. But then we have 2 large hairy alarm modules, although they’re getting a little less scarey looking over time.

Sad.

well, i had my smaller back window broken (not the one that rolls down, but the vent window) just a couple months ago. unlike one of the commentors, mine cost 400 bucks to replace. grrrr. on top of that, they stole all of my cds. thank God for iTunes. so, yeah, it’s shitty.

Old cartoon in the New Yorker:

Sign in car window: NO RADIO TO SPEAK OF

(Condolences, Brad. If it’s any consolation–and it isn’t–there are increasing reports of just this kind of thing in our swanky Studio City neighborhood. I think I’ll leave our car windows open.)

I used to leave my car unlocked, but it got stolen. They broke into the steering column and flipped a starter switch. That was a pain in the ass. Had to get it out of the impound lot, plus fix the steering column, since it’s illegal to drive with it that way. Cars suck.

A few years back some creep broke into my car through the rear window. He climbed over the seat into the front and attempted to start my car with his own car key, which broke off in my ignition switch. Since he couldn’t steal the car, he gave up and left with a broken pair of sunglasses and a roll of what he probably thought were quarters, but which were actually tokens for the toll booth at the Sunshine Skyway. If I had gotten a broken pair of sunglasses and a roll of Skyway tokens in exchange for ruining my own car key, I’d think I’d got the worst of the exchange.

Because it was dark and I had a lot of rubbish and clutter in the car, he didn’t notice the briefcase on the back seat containing my laptop computer; he did leave a footprint on it though.

Since it was the passenger side window that was smashed, why is it necessary for you to replace your driver’s side window?

Sucks to have your car vandalized for any reason. When I lived in Yakima, Wash., in the 80s, I left the sun roof of my Citation X-11 open one night. Some asshole cracked eggs and let the sticky contents ooze all over the front seats, and stuffed carrots and a potato up the tailpipe. The seats were ruined. I couldn’t prove it, but I know it was my then-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. The shithead hated my guts, but didn’t have the stones to face me.

When I lived in Brooklyn, the airbag (entire steering wheel, actually) was stolen from my ’93 Saturn 3 times, with all the necessary broken windows and other damage. Each time, it cost me $1200-$1300. My insurance rates went up to nosebleed-causing levels.

We moved.

I always used to drive convertibles. You learn real quick to leave the doors unlocked and don’t keep anything in the car. They slice your top, it’s a thousand bucks. Same with saddlebags on the scooter. They’re handy, but don’t put a lock on em and don’t keep anything in them you care about. Pain in the ass, but that’s life in modern america.

Interestingly, I spend a lot of time in Palo Alto these days. I’ve never seen another place like it. Fabulously wealthy on one side of 101, a violent ghetto on the other. The crackheads don’t even have to HAVE a car. They can walk to the prime stealin grounds. I only live in places with garages these days, but my car is at risk when I’m at the post facility.

mikey

We’ve been having some instances of gas siphoning in our parking lot, but that’s been it, thankfully. I’ve never had anything to steal, and have never been burglarized. I did have some shithead shoot my window out with a pellet gun a few years back, along with all the other cars parked up and down the street.

Ah, that was when I had my Renault Alliance. (Motto: Does it run? No! It’s a Renault!) A busted window was the least of that lemon’s problems. Thing went through alternators every four months or so.

The last time my car was broken into, I had left a spare petrol can which contained petrol rather than water on the back seat as I was having problems with the cooling system and the spare petrol can wasn’t being used for else. The water smelled strongly of petrol so I hope the fuckwit put it in his fuel tank.

sorry that should have been “contained water rather than petrol”.

Sucks man, happened to me a couple weeks ago. You know what made me forget all about it though? MY FUCKING HOUSE BURNED DOWN LAST WEEKEND. Try that and see if it brightens your spirits.

It could always be worse…

Same thing happened to me two years ago.

The thieves made off with about 50 cents in change.

The window replacement cost me $200.

Once a coworker went to go out in the field in his company 4×4, and when the truck wouldn’t move when put in gear he found someone had removed the drive shaft. Nothing more, just the shaft.

sorry Brad. that sucks.

If some Young Republican offered me 20 bucks to blow me, I would take the 20 dollars and run away! And buy some pot, natch.
Does that make me a bad person, or an Islamoterrorist?

Depends. Would you run before or after the blowjob?

Before! I’ve always had a neurotic fear of venereal disease.

aw man, i’m sorry, dude.

“It could always be worse…”

…it could be raining.

It can’t rain all the time…

Until the car manufacturers invent an electric forcefield to shock the bastards, it may help to leave the glovebox open and a big sign on the car saying nothing’s in the car. (It’s what we do in Vancouver where the drug addict is king.)

Sorry. That sucks.

Yeah, I know what you mean, Brad. My truck was recently stolen–it’s a 1986 toyota with 205k miles on it. They stole my registration, proof of insurance, 1/2 quart of oil, and cigarette lighter. They managed to fuck up both the locks so bad that you can’t unlock either door anymore, so I just disconnect the entire electrical system every time I stop. Man, there are a lot of stupid-ass car thieves out there.

Sorry to hear that, Brad. You too, Gilmore.

I always leave my doors unlocked. Not to prevent thieves from breaking my windows, but because my key won’t unlock the driver’s side door, and crawling across from the passenger side is too much hassle to protect the nothing of value I keep in the car.

The car got rifled through the other night, in fact. The jackass(es) left all the valuables, which were a 97 cent pair of earbuds and a half empty jug of detergeant. I did lose a case of CDs awhile back, but I guess you can call that karma since most of the CDs were burns from pirated mp3s. Bastards got my copy of Meddle, though. You pick the place and I’ll choose the time, jerky.

Let the bastards know that you won no valuable — trade in your current car for a transparent one.

I commisserate on the vandalism. That is a pain in the ass. I’m more or less in the same boat. I don’t have many bells or whistles on my car so it’s not really an appealing target. Still, I’ve had it vandalized before….it definitely is more of an incredible nuisance than anything. Anyway. My sympathies.

A co-worker staggered into my office a few years ago, laughing. After he calmed down, I asked him what the hell was the matter? He told me that somebody had just broken into his car, and stolen a large box from the back. Puzzled, I asked him why the heck he was laughing like that – I’d be pissed. He said he was out on a call; removing some animals from a residence. The box the perps stole was the animals. The animals? Five copperheads. One can only imagine the emotions when that box was opened…

I am a regular reader of Sadly, No!, but a first time commentor. I’ve had my car broken into twice. The first time was in Pomona, California. I was 16 at the time and didn’t think before leaving my backpack in the backseat of the car. It was really annoying to have to replace everything in my wallet. I got it much worse the second time, in Miami. I inadvertantly parked in a seedy area one night while going to a show, and when the show ended around 2 a.m. I came out to not only a broken driver’s side window…but a stolen battery. That’s right – they broke into my car to pop the hood so they could take my battery. I had to get it towed back to the dorms. That sucked.

trade in your current car for a transparent one.

Hey Dok. Good idea. But I had to think “damn, if I drove one of those, I’d pretty much have to ALWAYS wear pants”.

Of course, there’s a downside to everything…

mikey

Mikey wins the thread… again!

And Brad, sorry to hear that your car has been victimized. That’s one problem with old-fashioned, walkable, urban living areas… no reliable, secure parking. When we were house-hunting in the working-class suburbs north of Boston, it became clear that builders considered garages a “frill” until sometime in the 1960s. My partner grew up in northern Michigan, where some houses had attached garages before they had reliable electric service. (Or possibly indoor plumbing.) There’s just too much of modern America, from the “inner cities” to the exurbs to the boonies, where it’s somewhere between incredibly difficult and totally impossible to survive without a car of your own, dammit.

About six months ago I was walking down Van Ness in SF on my way to the bus, then I realize I am broke and turn around and go back to the ATM. On the way there I saw a somewhat shifty looking guy standing around holding a stick. Because this sort of behavior is normal in SF I just walked past, but I heard behind me the sound of breaking glass and a car alarm going off. I turned around and saw that guy digging around in a pick up truck. For a second or two, when I heard a loud “hey you” and the presumed owner of the pick up came running up. The smasher tried to get away, but the car owner grabbed him, punched him, and held him against the ground while simultaneously calling someone (I hope the police) on his cell.

I never go to that ATM anymore.

If you drive a a back honda civic that was parked in Allston then sorry, that was me, won’t happen again.

Otherwise never mind.

When I lived in Santa Monica, thieves kept busting into my old Pathfinder, punching the lock in the passenger side door and rifling through the car (they got my size 13 cowboy boots). Usually, car break-ins are a sign that you have tweekers in the neighborhood – my friend who lives in Portland has adopted the “why the hell lock it, that means they just break the window” strategy because of all the meth-heads in the area desperately looking for anything they can trade for another hit of the tina.

Now that I’m on the fringes of the hood, paradoxically, my car hasn’t been bothered once. Part of that is being on a dead-end street, part of it is the fact that the block I live on is home to at least three houses full of badass Mara Salvatrucha gangstas. These guys are hardcore – muscled like bulls, covered with tats and ready to rock&roll at a moment’s notice. A homeless guy tried to catch a nap under a shade tree on one of their front lawns a while back. One of the Maras (shaved head, white t-shirt, shades) came out to tell him to get lost. I heard the homeless dude slur back “Hey, fuck you.”

The Mara nodded, went back into the house and came out with a couple of his homies. And a jug of Kingsford lighter fluid.

Since then, word seems to have gotten around to steer clear of this area. The little homies don’t even come down to try to tag fences and walls.

My wife and I lived in Anacostia when we first started dating and didn’t have a single problem at all. Then we moved out to a pretty upscale suburb of DC and experienced three break-ins and a stolen car all in a months time. We moved back into the city.

Fuck the burbs.

Yeah, it happened to me, too. I was parked in a shitty neighborhood of Chicago, a couple o’ blocks away from Cabrini Green public housing project, near the old Oscar Mayer factory, while I was out up to no good. Not that any of those things necessarily had anything to do with the crime, but they’re just for flavor. It was, as I said, a shitty neighborhood. Since then, that whole area (teh OM factory, not CG) has been built over with upscale condos. Anyway, they threw either a brick or a cinderblock through the passenger-side window. It bounced off the seat, and cracked my windshield. They rifled through everything, and got something like $5. Looking up and down the street, I could see piles of broken glass in the empty spaces where cars that had left had been parked, and remaining cars with broken windows. Yes, they had gone up the entire street, breaking into cars. I was so angry that I could hardly drive.